Christmas Eve Performance

Published December 12, 2024 by Kyle Barsch
Advent Devotion 12

Anyone who knows me would probably be shocked to learn I was a budding thespian at an early age. Well, more of a forced budding thespian. Every Christmas Eve at my grandparents’ ranch outside of Brady, TX, my sister, cousin, and I were “encouraged” to put on a Christmas program. Unfortunately, it was the highlight of my grandmother’s Christmas experience and thus unavoidable. Based on the actual performances throughout the years, she was clearly very easy to please. One thing I can be thankful for is this was before the advent of social media, YouTube, etc., so evidence of these performances is severely limited to a few photographs over the years.

My grandparents had a barn with actual hay bales, so recreating the manger scene was easy and made for an obvious program year after year. Another thing I could be thankful for was the limited audience of just my small family. Anyone who knows me can attest that I avoid being the center of attention and did my best to evade participation in any type of performance. That was until that fateful Christmas of 1985.

Preparations were being made for another Christmas Story recreation in the barn when a middle-aged couple came walking up my grandparents’ driveway. Their car had broken down, and being 20 miles outside of Brady, TX, they might as well have been wandering much like the Israelites. Of course, my grandmother never met a stranger, everyone who knew her claimed she was an angel on earth. So, it shouldn’t have surprised me at all when she invited these two strangers to attend our annual Christmas Eve performance. I’m almost positive my eight-year-old self exclaimed, “HOW CAN THIS BE?!” Yes, the kid who didn’t even like performing for family would now be performing for two complete strangers.

But something interesting happened. I saw the appreciation and gratitude of these two strangers, and even as a kid, I realized this was more than just the small performance we put on each year. It really did bring joy to my grandmother and truly added to her Christmas experience. The wonder of Advent was being played out for two people we’d never met and who were just looking for a place of welcome and comfort on Christmas Eve.

No Academy Awards were handed out that night, and it didn’t lead me to a career in theater; however, this experience did give me a newfound appreciation for helping those in need and being welcoming even if I wasn’t comfortable in the moment. I’ll always remember the gratitude of these two strangers, who I’m sure had their own “How can this be?” moment, when they were stranded in the middle of nowhere on Christmas Eve. I’d like to think our small-time performance left them with long-lasting memories and added to their appreciation of the Advent season, just as it has me for the past 39 years.